Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Bold and Brash

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss Matt Brash's impressive MLB debut, the Mariners' offensive struggles and preview the team's next two games against the White Sox.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you concerned about the Mariners' current three-game skid? Well, to quote Michael Jordan, stop it. Get some help. We're just three games then. This is a Lockdown Mariners podcast. Colby. Let's get into it. You are Locked-on Mariners.

Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. It is Wednesday, April 13th, 2020, and this is the Lockdown Mariner's podcast. for no episode yesterday, but thank you so much for tuning in today and making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I'm your host, Taddy Gonzalez. Joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patno. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L-O- underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat-E and C-Pat-E-1. Be sure also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more.

And also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com. forward slash control zone for more information on that if you are interested new episode dropping for all of our patrons later today so be sure to check that out if you're subscribed or if you want to subscribe and test drive the show if you will matt brash was filthy in his major league debut yesterday we'll be talking about that on today's episode of locked on ms we'll also be going over seattle's offensive struggles and preview what is most likely going to be a double header between the mariners and the white socks tomorrow thunderstorms in the forecast for tonight's first pitch in Chicago. So it would be a surprise if that game gets played tonight. And if this is your first time joining us here, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear,

give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell. Give this video a thumbs up and tell your friends to come check us out. Greatly appreciate it. So Colby, Matt Brash,

made his Major League debut. I had a really fun time watching it. five of the third innings pitch six strikeouts just one walk two earn runs the only one really falls on his shoulders a mistake that he made to louis robert that led to the white socks taking a two to one lead what did you see from brash in this uh in this first appearance for him and i mean he pretty much through the kitchen sink at the white socks right yeah pretty even distribution uh between the fastball the curveball and the slider um it was mostly fastball knuckle curve actually not the slider slider was his third pitch today mixing a few changeups um

nothing nothing super of note of the change up it was it was pretty good it had plenty of movement um you know probably the one that people remember the most is the one that louise turenz uh couldn't catch so uh should have been a strike it should have been a strike either way it should have been a strike it was a beauty um but yeah mostly fastball knuckle curves slider uh it took stack cast about 12 to 18 hours to actually distinguish between Brash's

knuckle curve and a slider they were just originally calling them all sliders so that's how filthy those two pitches were spin rates just off the charts both the curveball and the slider both topped off over 3,000 RPMs they averaged

over 2,900 RPMs each he was able to induce you know, six whiffs on 16 swings with a slider, five wifts, 15 swings with the knuckle curve ball. He threw, for the most part, he threw a lot of strikes, only the one walk.

But there were some things that, you know, we know about Matt Brash that were present, right? I mean, he leaves the hanging, breaking ball to Roberts. It's just a non-competitive pitch. That's going to happen for Brash because, again, he doesn't have pinpoint control. He just kind of goes up there and he throws it.

and wherever it lands, it lands, and it's so filthy that he's able to generate, you know, some really bad swings. But when that's the type of pitch you are, you're also going to give up a lot of hard contact. And Brash gave up his fair amount. Didn't really come back to bite him. Guys were having a tough time getting the right launch angle, let's say. But there were plenty of hard hit balls. One thing of note here is that he didn't generate a single swing and miss on his fastball, believe it or not. that's something that he's going to have to do at some point.

He's going to have to get value out of that pitch. It's got plenty of run. It's got plenty of velocity. So it's not anything to be concerned about. But it is, you know, something that the White Sox didn't whiff on a single one of his fastballs. And when they put it in play, which was every time they, you know, basically every time they swung at it, average X velocity of 10.0.100.0. minimum exit velocity of 96.4.

So they were squaring up the fastball. Pretty good. So he's not going to be able to live off the curve on slider forever. He's going to have to get value out of that fastball at some point. But for the first time out in a bad ballpark against a pretty good lineup, it was very impressive. Yeah. And take this with a grain of salt,

but, you know, Saras of the athletic today tweeting that Matt Brash officially, or at least temporarily, because this stat really needs about a few games to work itself out and properly, you know, address pitcher stuff. But stuff plus, Matt Brash is currently the leader in Stuff Plus. And Stuff Plus is exactly what it sounds like. It rates the best stuff from all pitchers in baseball.

And Matt Brash right now at the top of the list. We'll see if that continues, but, I mean, he certainly looked nasty. I don't know if you saw the screenshots of White Sox Reddit. reacting to Matt Brash, but they were all just like, how are we going to beat this guy? And I mean, like, I would think that that's a pretty scary sight for an opposing team. Going up against a guy making his major league debut, not a lot of people know about Matt Brash outside of Seattle, really, and outside of really, you know, the prospect guys. So this guy has really just come out of nowhere throwing just some of the most ridiculous stuff you could ever see on a baseball mound right now.

and that includes that just absolute disgusting slider that induced a ton of swords. I think I counted six or seven yesterday for Matt Brash on the slider. That's just nuts. That's nuts. Eleven swings and misses in total for Brash. You mentioned that he didn't have a single one on the fastball, so all of that coming on the breaking stuff to change up as well. It was really nice.

It was pretty much you saw. everything that Matt Brash brings to the table. He came as advertised. And yeah, there were some command issues, which also comes as advertised. But overall, I mean, if he's hitting the zone, which he was a lot yesterday, the command for the most part wasn't too much of an issue. And when he's hitting the zone consistently, I mean, that's one of the most disgusting starting pitchers in baseball, quite frankly.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Matt Brash is kind of like the perfect pitcher to show people when we talk about control versus command. Control is just the ability to throw strikes. Matt Brash can do that. Matt Brash can throw strikes.

Can he place the pitches exactly where he wants them most of the time? Not really, not yet. And that's the difference, right? Most pitchers can throw a fastball down the middle. But you don't want to throw a fastball down the middle. You want to throw a fastball that's on the inside corner or just two inches off the outside corner.

Can you do that consistently? That's command. Brash right now, probably 40-grade command, maybe 45 if you want to be generous. Probably 45 control, 50 control. And again, thankfully, the stuff is so good that he doesn't need to be significantly better than that. But if he can be,

I mean, you're looking at a guy with ace level stuff. Like, it's elite stuff. So that's what's going to come down to. Also, how long can he sustain? how long can he go. It looked like he's starting to lose a little bit of his feel the third time through the order after five. But that could also just be because it was his first start. And it was a short in spring training. But Brash is going to be on a bit of pitch. Let me ask you about that, by the way. Did you like the decision to let him go out for a third time

through the order? Not really. I didn't hate it. And I get what you're just trying to squeeze as many outs as you can because the Mariners don't technically have an off day until Monday. They're probably going to get one today, but then they're going to kind of lose that with the double-edder tomorrow. So every out your starting pitcher can get for you is one less out the bullpen has to. And, you know, the bullpen had to pitch, you know, had to carry, what, seven innings the day before. And so I get what they were trying to do. I personally wouldn't have done it, but I don't hate it.

Because pitch count was fine. I think it was at 75 when they sent him out there and they wanted him to be around 80, So no, I wouldn't have sent him out there, but I get why they did it. And it's something that Brash is going to have to do. If he wants to stay in the rotation, he's going to have to be able to get guys out on pitches 80 through 100. And because of his size, there are some who question whether or not he can. But regardless, if he can or can't, what we saw on, well, what we saw yesterday on Tuesday, is that Matt Brash is at least a absolutely filthy, disgusting Josh Hader level,

you know, multi-inning dominant closer at first. Like that's who Matt Brash is. That's the floor. And if you're the Mariners, why wouldn't you give this guy the ball, you know? And it just there's a lot of like, hey, they should have signed Tyler Anderson. They should have signed blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, maybe just maybe the Mariners understand what they can do, starting pitching and bolpen.

Maybe the mayors are pretty good at scouting and developing pitching. Maybe we should trust them a little bit more. But we'll see if Brash can hang it can hold up. I'm certainly excited to see him pitch against the Astros. That's, what will be the Astros? Yeah, yeah. It'll be on Sunday. Sunday.

Hey, the game that behind the, somebody won tickets from us behind home plate and they get to watch Matt Brash sliders from behind home plate against a very good Astros lineup. That's going to be a lot of fun. So yeah, Matt Brash Day is probably about to be a thing all over Seattle. Yeah, I mean, it's something that I'm very much looking forward to. I tweeted today that if I could watch him pitch every single day for the rest of my life, I would absolutely love that. But, hey, you know, there's a good consolation prize in the Meriters rotation called Robbie Ray and Logan Yorne.

So I will happily take that as well. Unfortunately, Brash did not get the win in this game. He actually got the loss despite only giving up to earn runs. And that's really because of another awful, dreadful. Honestly, there aren't enough adjectives in the world to describe this offense over the last couple days. It's a bad performance from the offense. We're going to be talking about these offensive struggles that we've seen against Dylan Bundy and Vince Velasquez. Just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bilt Bar.

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every day. And just a reminder to check out locked on MLB prospects. Hosts Lindsay Crosby is a prospect encyclopedia and he's going deep on the MLB stars of tomorrow. It's free and available wherever you get podcasts just like us. So that was a lot to say. I am sick, by the way, if you guys couldn't tell. But that was a bit of a struggle for me right there. So let's get into this offense though, because that might be more lethargic than I am right now. just three runs, two runs, two runs in the last two days. All coming yesterday, Aohannio Suarez with a solo shot,

Good Vibes Only, starting to get it together, had a couple of hits yesterday, had a double in the shutout loss on Monday night as well. One of the few hits that the Mariners had against Dylan Bundy. And then they went up against Vince Velas and only got the one run, the Suarez home run. Jesse Waker got an RBI single in the ninth inning, but ultimately they weren't able to fulfill the comeback. Another bad at bat from Mitch Hanager with runners in scoring position.

I know that you tease that you have a take about Hanager on Twitter. We'll get to that in just a moment. But overall, is it time to panic about this offense? No, actually, I was, obviously yesterday it was very frustrating because Vince Velasquez is not a good pitcher. You know, Dylan Bundy is about league average at best. So obviously the last two days have been very frustrated. I think the Mariners have only scored in six innings this year. You know, and we're heading into game six, probably not tonight, but, you know, probably

tomorrow will be game six and seven, and they've only scored in six innings, you know, six seven innings. So they're just not, you know, consistently scoring run. So it's frustrating, certainly. But I actually thought yesterday there were a lot of really good at bats. There were some, you know, hard hit balls that, you know, unfortunately having to play Buxton and Luis Roberts back to back. I mean, that seems unfair.

They're both elite center fielder's. There are a couple balls. What was it? Monday night after the shutout, I said, well, at least the Mariners don't have to play Byron Buckson again. And then I totally forgot. Yeah, they got, yeah, they got to play Louise Robert the next day. Same thing.

Same thing. Yeah, same exact thing. And Robert again, home run. Robbed, robbed at least probably one RBI, maybe two. like he stole two bases in the bottom of the eighth to help give the White Sox the deciding run like we're we're going to have to talk about the Mariners lack of interest in stopping a run game particularly the pastio like at least at least look at the guy but um I mean something step off once in a while hold the ball but whatever um different conversation for a different day but yeah I thought there were a lot of really good at bats strike some didn't help much. Kellman's best at bat maybe of the year he gets jobbed by a bad strike call against Kendall Graveman the only way Graveman can you know pitch a scoreless in oh by the way by the way despite the offensive

performance Abraham Toro still owns Kendall Graveman let's just let the record show that double it was a little fluky but we're gonna ignore that line drive in the book baby yeah yeah driving the book Toro owns Graveman so that's right as of course yeah um but But yeah, it's actually a pretty good at bat by Kellanick. He fouled off a couple pitches. Took some strikes that he couldn't do much with, and that is preferable. And that's kind of been a running theme, or at least it was yesterday. There were a lot of strikes that the Mariners took, that they just, they were good takes, right?

I mean, they're strikes, but you can't really do much with them. The thing that's frustrating about the Mariners was sometimes it feels like they're a little bit too cautious. You know, they're taking first pitch fastballs down the middle. Suarez did that in his second aback. I think it was. I mean, it was like 96 dead center cut. Like that's probably not when you should go up to the play and just watch. But again, I think the quality of the at-bats have been pretty good with the exception of the Bundy game.

I think their XWOBA as a team shows that they're putting up quality at bats. They're hitting the ball pretty hard, pretty regularly. It's just not really happening for them right now. So I don't think anybody needs to panic. I do think we're going to see a breakout. relatively soon the thing with baseball is you never really know when it's going to happen but again they're for the most part they're putting up good solid at bats they're hitting the ball hard and that's really all you can do and at some point those hits are going to fall at some point

you know those 50 50 pitches are going to go your way and you're just kind of it's like you're playing blackjack right you play enough hands you know you're going to get on hot streaks you're going to get on cold streaks and eventually it's going to even out close to 50-50 And so it's just a matter of maximizing your opportunities and the Mariners feel like they're doing that. So I think the offense is closer to a breakout than people might think so. But obviously, you know, it's frustrating. It's hard to sit here and say like, oh, it's coming when you've just watched, I mean, at least scoreboard wise, box score wise, two terrible offensive performances. Yeah.

Well, and the thing is, you know, you went up against two pretty mediocre starting pitchers and didn't and didn't do a ton of damage against them. and you just can't have it. Just can't have that. You got to be able to take advantage of those matchups, and they weren't able to. Hopefully that changes. And yeah, there was a bit of, you know, some bad luck yesterday, some hard hit balls that just went directly right to gloves.

There was the hard hit ball that Terenz had that kind of died because of the wind. Hanager first. Yeah, that, yeah, yeah, Hanager had one. Jimenez had that catch on Terenza's hard hit ball to love. It just, you know, it happens. It's frustrating. You know, that's not to say it's not. But, you know, I, it's five games.

Like, that's the thing here. It's like, we're five games in. They started out pretty well with the couple wins. The offensive performances on those games weren't fantastic, but they were acceptable. You know, they were good enough to get you in the win column. And I think things are eventually going to work themselves out. Plus, you look around the league, offense is kind of down in general right now. And you look at some of the players that, you know, we spent all offseason talking about for the Mariners,

Marcus Simi and Trevor Story. You know, some of these guys are just really struggling right now. Carlos Correa is another guy that's really struggling right now. It happens. Like this whole, you know, I see a lot of talk about Jared Kellnick on Twitter right now from just like the national guys and stuff. Yeah, he struck out a lot. He struggled. But it's five games.

Again. Right. Carlos Carraena, I think, has like six or seven strikeouts right now. And it's like, it's just this, there is not enough time. This is not even a small sample size. This is a microscopic sample size at best for all of these guys right now. So, yeah, I'm not concerned about it. It is frustrating.

You know, there have been opportunities here. You know, you could realistically see a path here where the Mariners could be four and one right now. and yeah, I get that. That's really frustrating. But overall, though, you know, it's just, it's not time to panic. The one thing, though, that has been really frustrating to watch has been Mitch Hanager with runners in scoring positions, some pretty uncompetitive at-bats, which, and look, I get it, you know, he's driven in almost half of the Mariners runs this far. That's great, you know, and this is not to trash Mitch Hanigur necessarily,

but he was in some big spot. Well, maybe you are going to trash Mitch Tanigar in a second. But, you know, he was in some pretty big spots yesterday. I think he had three opportunities with a runner on second or third that he either popped up or struck out. The last sat bat in the ninth inning yesterday was abysmal. He had a middle, middle fastball. He had a fastball up in the zone. And then he chased after a fastball outside of the zone at the top of the zone for strike three,

a three-pitch strikeout against a struggling Liam Hendricks. And that's just the thing with Hanager right now is that he's just way too aggressive for his own good. And that's really hurting him. Yeah, it's led to a couple home runs in the Minnesota series. That's great. I appreciate that. But also, it's hurting the team as well.

Yeah, it's one of those things you kind of look at Hanigur and you go, wow. I mean, he's already got two home runs and he's got six RVIs and he's 90th percentile on average exit velocity and 92nd percentile and X slugging and 96 percentile in barrel percentage. It's like, wow, that's really neat. It doesn't matter because if you only make contact, if you only hit the ball three times in a week, then the quality of the contact really doesn't make a difference. And here's the thing with Mitch Hanigar is he's not backing it up with getting on

base at all. Mitch Hanneger hasn't walked this year. Zero walks. It's also striking out 28.6% of the time, which again, it's early. I mean, that's nothing to panic about. But that's high. For the type of hitter Mitch needs to be, that is high. Again, there's been some bad luck here, but you watch Mitch Hanigar. I'll say, Mitch Hanigur has a selfish approach at the plate right now. It's bad. It's non-existent. Basically, Mitch Hanigar is going up there. And he is looking to pull everything he can into the left field bleachers. And if it happens to help the team in another way, then fine. So be it.

Mitch Hanigar is swinging at 70% of the pitches in the strike zone. He's swinging at good pitchers pitches. And what is he trying to do with them? He's trying to yank them into the left field bleachers. You're not going to do that. You're Mitch Hanager. You're not Juan Soto. Okay.

So you have to be willing to take the pitch. where it's given. You have to be willing to take an outside basketball that's just off the outside corner and let it go for a 50-50 call. Or try to slap it into right field or drive it into right field. You have that type of power. But what we're seeing for Mitch right now is just the only thing he cares about is elevating the baseball to his pole side. That is his entire game plan. That is his entire approach. That is his entire swing right now is getting pole side in the air. And when it works, when the pitcher cooperates and gives him a pitch that he can do that

with or pitch that, you know, a mistake that he can do that with? Great. But these are big league pitchers. They're not going to make that mistake every time. And even if they have the book on them. Right. And even if you do get make that, even if you do get that one mistake, you're not perfect, you're going to miss that mistake on occasion. So when we're talking about a guy getting a, you know, a two-oh slider that's middle of the plate and elevated for him and he rolls over and grounds it to the third baseman because he was trying to yank that thing and then Timbuck too well there you go he just cost your team a run like Mitch Hanager is not a guy who should be selling out for power because he's not a guy who's who's walking right now he's

not bringing you any other value so literally what we have here it's Joey Gallo minus the defense the base running and the walks I mean it's hard to argue with that right now you're William O'Pena. What good is that? It's not. It's not. Mitch Hanager needs to be better. He has to be.

I don't know what the answer is. I don't know if it's a game. I don't know if it's a game plan. I don't know if it's, you know, a slight swing change. It's just not the Mitch Hanigar we have seen in the past. Someone that, you know, because Hanager pre-injury would go the opposite field. He'd catch those pitches on the outside zone and slap him in the right field. Doubles.

Yeah, doubles. You know, it wasn't this. constant need to pull, this constant reliance on capitalizing on mistakes. And that's really, you know, you hit the nail on the head there.

Is that really that's what he's looking for. And that right now, in terms of him being your number four guy, that's just not going to do the job. He's got to be able to get on base more consistently. He's got to be able to, you know, you know, keep things going, keep the line moving, which is what he needed to do yesterday.

You know, he had a struggling pitcher in Liam Hendricks who attacked him with three consecutive fastballs and made a mistake in the middle of the plate, but he missed it. He fouled it off. You know, and like you said, he's not going to be perfect. He is going to miss some of those mistakes. And it's just that over-reliance on being able to constantly capitalize on those. It's just, that's going to hurt you in the end.

And it just, it kind of seems like right now, and again, it's very early. And this is the thing that I'm going to preach with every single player that we are going to talk about, you know, here at the start of the season. But it's hard not to feel like if he doesn't make some changes sooner rather than later, we're looking at a year where Mitch Hanaker is going to hit 220, 2.30, hit a ton of home runs. Yeah, maybe a little bit better than Kyle Seeger, but not that much. Not much, if at all. Yeah. Yeah. Mitch Hinder is pulling

Mitch Hinderer is pulling every 67% pull rate. Yeah. That needs to be no higher than 50. And that that change needs to happen pretty soon. And I don't know. I think it will, but we'll see. It's up to Mitch.

Yeah. Just can't have it from your number four guy right now. It's hurt the team maybe not necessarily as much as it's helped. I don't know. Because he has, I mean, he was the reason that they. won the first game on opening day. He's also been,

yes, he's also been the worst hitter with runners in scoring position on this team and it's not close. It's, the abats are not competitive. All right, so let's talk about the, what I would assume is going to be two games tomorrow

instead of just the one. Obviously because we didn't have an episode yesterday, we didn't get a chance to preview the series. So let's talk about it a little bit because probably by now, You, our dear listener, knows that this game has been postponed. I would assume that's going to be the case here. Again, thunderstorms and the forecast.

I believe there's 100% chance of that happening around 8 o'clock. First pitch is supposed to be 7 o'clock local time. So, yeah. So Robbie Ray, going to take the bump against Dallas Keichel. Do we know yet who the White Sox pitcher is going to be against Logan Gilbert in game two? Have they announced that yet? They haven't announced yet, but they did call somebody. up from AAA the other day. I don't have the name in front of me, but the Mariners are aware.

Okay. So yes, I don't think it was Matt Thompson. Try to look it up real fast. Well, while you're doing that, so Robbie Ray first start on Friday, five strikeouts, four walks, not the sharpest. We've seen him, but he only gave up the one run and he went seven innings. So, I mean, that's pretty good. And we talked about, you know, on Monday how, you know, really good pitchers are able to do They're able to battle. Even when they don't have their best stuff, they're able to battle and give you a chance to win. Now he's going up against a very right-handed heavy lineup with a lot of power with guys like Luis Robert and Elo Yemenz and Jose Abraeu, etc. What are you hoping to see from Ray in his second start as a mariner?

Yeah, it's, again, it's a pretty tough lineup. A lot of righties, a lot of power righties. They're a very aggressive lineup as well. They don't like to hit with two strikes. They want to get out there and swing the bat. So it'll be interesting to see how Ray decides to attack that. Does he go fastball early and just try it and get some quick outs? Does he maybe go to the slider a little bit earlier and try to take advantage of their aggressiveness, maybe the change up even?

So yeah, it's just it's one of those things where, you know, kind of what the game plan is is going to tell us a lot. Ray is, he was okay in his last start. he didn't have his best command, particularly the slider. So we'll see what he can do with that pitch this second time out. Maybe the velocity jumps back up. He's going to have an extra day's rest, so maybe that helps. But I think Ray's probably going to be pretty aggressive with this lineup. I think he's going to go right at him.

They're going to be aggressive as well. So I think there's the possibility that there are some quick innings. And I wouldn't be too surprised if Robert Ray gave you another seven. solid innings. The ballpark in Chicago is kind of a joke. It's not, it's not good, even aesthetically. It's not good. But so we'll see how that works out for him. But I think he's going to be aggressive. I think the white socks are also going to be pretty aggressive. And I think that's a formula for Ray getting through six or seven innings on a day where you're really going to need it if you're playing too. Yeah, you're really going to need it, especially with the

work that the ballpen has had to take on over the last couple of, days. So let's talk about Logan Gilbert then for game two. Obviously, did not get off to a great start in the first couple of his first start, but then really calmed down and put together a pretty nice performance against Minnesota and the Mariners' second win of the season on Saturday. What are you open to see from Gilbert another righty against, you know, again, a right-handed heavy lineup. Obviously, Brash had a lot of success against the righties in this lineup. What do you What are you hoping to see from Gilbert? I'd like to see them mixing the off-speed stuff pretty early.

White Sox are a very aggressive basketball hunting team. Gilbert's got a really good one, so it's kind of strength on strength here. But if Gilbert can really get the slider rolling in this game in particular, then that's a lethal combination. And again, every out that you can get from your starters and double-headers this year is going to be huge because they are nine innings and after Thursday's doublehead, which we're assuming will be Thursday's doubleheader. Maybe it'll get made up another day.

I don't know. But if we're assuming there's a double header right there, nine innings this year, not seven. And after that game, the Mariners are going to have to hop on a cross-country flight to get home and play the Astros. And by the time they get back to Seattle, they'll be playing the Astros in about 18 hours after that.

So, yeah, it's the schedule and the weather's not doing the Mariners any favors here. but if Ray and Gilbert can give the Mariners, let's say, 13 of the 18 innings they need, hopefully only 18, they need on Thursday, then they're probably in pretty good shape, heading in both, you know, both in the possibility they win those games and heading into the Astro Series, the bullpen should be in okay shape. So it's really going to be about, you know, get me as many outs as you can. And thankfully, the White Sox are so.

aggressive that if those two guys have their good off-speed stuff, they should be able to work their way through the lineup. And they're going to get up some runs, sure, but they should be able to be somewhat efficient and get through that lineup and give the Mariners six or seven meetings each. And that would be huge for Seattle right now. The offense, do you think maybe they're going to take this day off? We presume they're going to have and maybe figure some things out by tomorrow. you would hope so it's it's Dallas

keichel who lots of ground balls but he's contact heavy so you know there's a chance not don't have to worry about too many strikeouts your right your right handed hitters should have a good opportunity there then I believe it's going to be Jimmy Lampert is going to start the second game I don't know much about him he's a righty

yeah I've heard of him vaguely but that's usually the guy who goes out and pitches six shutout innings against the Mariners at least tradition of course so of course yeah yeah yeah we'll see I do think they're really close to a breakout. I don't know what's going to happen for them in Chicago. It would be kind of fun if it happened to break out against the Astros at home.

But I do think they're prime for a breakout here pretty soon. So it wouldn't shock me. They touch up Kichael or Lampert tomorrow. All right. Let me ask you a non-maritous question before we hop off here because everyone's talking about it right now. Clayton Kershaw was perfect through seven innings against the twins at 13 strikeouts. was only at 80 pitches.

Dave Roberts took him out and they gave up a hit right away. Would you have kept Kershaw in there despite the fact that he hasn't had a lot of innings on his arm? Yeah. Yeah. I just yeah. Well, Kershaw doesn't need a perfect game like obviously it's it's really cool if you got one and I'm totally not saying this as somebody who wants Felix Chandes to have the last perfect game. Um,

in major league baseball history. But no, because, I mean, Kershaw's dealt with injuries the last few years anyways. And I don't think he got over six, six, like five, six innings in spring training. Like it was,

it was not a normal buildup for him anyway. So no, um, you have to protect Kershaw long term. I'm sure Kershaw would rather pitch in, in October, think he'd for a perfect game in, in April.

Um, they also showed him, uh, talking to Roberts in the dugout. And it seemed like he agreed with the decision. So, yeah, I mean,

it's not just pitch. County either it's it's getting up sitting down you know then getting back out there it's doing that seven times for the first time and a year and then saying hey you want to go do it an eighth time i just just why why run that risk so no um i don't have the issue with it now uh i was very pleased to see that the twins were getting perfected after uh this past weekend after particularly those last two days of that series so uh the dodgers might be a little bit better than the mariners Maybe, maybe. You know, technically yesterday, even after the Mariners lost, they did have a higher winning percentage of the Dodgers because the Dodgers only played three games.

They were one and two. Mariners two and three. So higher winning percentage. So clearly chills. The Mariners are better than the Dodgers. All right. So that's going to do it for our show. I actually made it through this.

Thankfully. Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. Not sure what we're going to be doing for tomorrow's episode. especially if there's a double header. I think that's going to be something that Colby and I will have to figure out off air and then we'll let you guys know on Twitter. But for Colby Patnode,

I'm Taday-N-G-N-Zalus. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-N-R-N-Rer-N-Rer. You can follow me at Dan-G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-P-E-T-E-E-E-C-PAT-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode, whether it's on YouTube or wherever you're listening to it.

Thank you again for making us your first list. of the day, just like you do here every day. Now make your second listen of the day, Lockdown MLB as my phone continues to go off. Thank you for the text. Paul Francis Sullivan, and please call him Sully, brings you his unique perspective on the major league's president and past.

It's free wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we will see you tomorrow. Peace.